664- 




MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 

ON THE 

LIFE AND CHARACTER 

Thomas Brackett Reed 



DELIS'ERED IN 



JOINT ASSEMBLY OF THE TWO BRANCHES OF 
THE LEGISLATURE. 

Wedne;sday, January 28, 1903. 



AUGUSTA 

KENNEBEC JOURNAL PRINT 
1903 






NDite Hv 



STATE OF MAINE. 



In Senate, 

January 30, 1903. 
Ori^EREd, That the resolutions adopted by the Senate and 
House of Representatives in joint assembly, on Wednesday, 
January 28, and the remarks made by the several senators and 
representatives, together with a steel plate engraving of the late 
Thomas B. Reed, be issued in pamphlet form, and that 3,000 
copies of the same be furnished to the members of the legislature. 



In Senate Chamber, January 30, 1903. Read and passed. 
Sent down for concurrence. 

KENDALL M. DUNBAR, 

Secretary. 

House of Representatives, January 30, 1903, Read and 
passed in concurrence. 

W. S. COTTON, 

Clerk. 
A true copy. 

Attest: KENDALL M. DUNBAR, 

Secretary. 



STATE OF MAINE. 



In House of Representatives, 

January 14, 1903. 

Ordered, The Senate concurring, that a committee consisting 
of the Governor, President of the Senate and such members of 
the Senate as miay be jomed on the part of the Senate, and seven 
members of the House of Representatives, of which number the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives shall be one, be 
appointed to arrange for suitable memorial exercises to be held 
in the Hall of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, 
January 28, 1903, in order that the Executive Department and 
members of the Legislature may pa}- a just tribute of respect to 
the memon- of the late Thomas B. Reed. 



In House of Representatives, Januan.- 14. 1903. Read and 
passed. Sent up for concurrence. 

W. S. COTTON, 

Clerk. 

In Senate Chamber. January 15. 1903. Read and passed in 

concurrence. 

KENDALL M. DUNBAR. 

Secretary. 



COMMITTEE TO ARRANGE MEMORIAL EXERCISES 
FOR THE LATE HON. THOMAS B. REED. 



His Excellency, the Governor, Hon. John F. Hill, 
The President ot the Senate, Hon. Harry R. Virgin, 
The Speaker of the House, Hon. Oscar F. Fellows, 
Messrs. Randall of Cumberland, 

Wing of Androscoggin, 

Goodwin of Somerset, 
Messrs. Swett of J'ortland, 

Dav^s of Water vi lie, 

Allan of Portland, 

Smith of Presque Isle, 

Weeks of Fairfield, 

Oakes of Auburn, — of the House. 



— of the Senate, 



REMARKS OF 

PAGE 

The Governor, Hon. John F. Hill 13 

Senator Randall of Cumberland 14 

Representative Smith of Presque Isle 16 

Senator Wing of Androscoggin 18 

Representative Davis of Waterville 20 

Representative Smith of Hartland 22 

Senator Stetson of Penobscot 24 

Representative Perkins of Wilton 26 

Representative Sewall of Bath 28 

Senator Goodwin of Somerset. 31 

Representative Swett of Portland 35 



STATE OF MAINE. 



In Joint Assembly of the Two Branches of the 
Legislature. 

In the Hall of the House of Representatives, 

Augusta, Wednesday, January 28, 1903. 
This being the day designated by joint order of the two 
branches of the Legislature for holding memorial exercises for 
the late Hon. Thomas B. Reed, the members of the Senate and 
House of Representatives convened in the Hall of the House of 
Representatives at 10.15 o'clock, A. M. 

The President of the Senate, Hon. Harry R. Virgin, called 
the Assembly to order and said : 

"This Assembly has been formed to pay our tribute of respect 
to the memory of the late Hon. Thomas B. Reed, and the Chair 
awaits the pleasure of the Assembly." 

On motion by Mr. Burns of Cumberland, 
Messrs. Burns of Cumberland, 

Staples of Knox, — of the Senate, 

Messrs. Drew of Portland, 
Shaw of Bath, 
Blake of Sidney, 
BuzzELL of Old Town, 

Knowlton of Camden, — of the House, 

were appointed committee to wait upon the Honorable Governor 
and Council, and inform them that the two branches of the 
Legislature were in joint assembly in the Hall of the House of 



12 MEJMORIAL ADDRIiSSES. 

Representatives, for the purpose of holding memorial exercises 
for the late Hon. Thomas B. Reed, and to extend an invitation 
to them to attend. 

Mr. Burns subsequently reported that the committee had 
attended to the duty assigned it, and the Governor was pleased 
to make answer, that he would forthwith attend in this hall, 
accompanied by the Executive Council, for the purpose of join- 
ing in the exercises. 

Thereupon the Governor, attended by the Council and Heads 
of Departments, entered the hall. 

The Governor assumed the chair and addressed the assembly 
as follows : 



REMARKS OF THE GOVERNOR, HON. JOHN F. HILL. 

Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

We unite today in commemorating- the life and public services 
of one of Maine's most noble and illustrious sons, Thomas 
Brackett Reed. In every sense of the word Mr. Reed was a 
statesman; and his brilliant career excited the respect and 
admiration of every- true American. It is an honor and privilege 
to join in this tribute to his memory. 

The Chair will now recog^nize the senator from Cumberland, 
Mr. Randall, as the first speaker. 

THE RESOLUTIONS. 

Senator Randall of Cumberland county, offered the following 

resolvitions : 

The Seventy-first Legislature of Maine, by joint resolution, 
unanimously adopted, having set aside this day and fixed this 
place as the occasion lor memorial exercises for our late distin- 
guished citizen, Thomas B. Reed, therefore 

Resolved, That we as representatives of the people of the 
great State which was the birthplace of Thomas B. Reed, 
unitedly and publicly give voice to the universal sorrow which 
the news of his untimely death caused to pervade every portion 
of our domain. 

Resolved, That the entire public and private career of Mr. 
Reed is a source of the greatest satisfaction and pride to all our 
citizens, and that his high character, lofty aspirations, command- 
ing ability, and valuable public services rendered our State and 
nation will ever be held in affectionate and grateful remem- 
brance by all the people in his native State. 

Resolved, That these resolutions be extended upon the records 
of the convention and that as evidence of the sincere sympathy 
and condolence of all the people of Maine, an engrossed copy 
thereof, be sent to his family. 



REMARKS OF HON. CHARLES H. RANDALL OF 

PORTLAND, SENATOR FROM CUMBERLAND 

COUNTY. 
Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

In support of the resolutions, I desire to say a few words. 

In the year 1861 I was a student in the old High School for 
boys in Portland. In that year there came to us an assistant 
teacher, a young man just graduated from Bowdoin College — a 
rather tall, smooth faced jolly fellow — whom we boys soon 
learned to love and respect, a young man who all unforeseen by 
us, was destined in after years to become one of the master- 
minds of the republic, and one of the greatest statesmen this 
country has produced — teacher, lawyer. State senator, attorney 
general of Maine, city solicitor of Portland and for twenty-two 
years representing with distinguished ability, the first district 
I \ of Maine in the Congress of the United States,— standing there 
' during all that time, without a peer among the giants of that 
body. Three times elected Speaker of the National House — a 
great, honest, brainy, manly man — Thomas Brackett Reed. 

And we are assembled here to-day to pay a last fond tribute 
to his memory, who but a few short weeks ago, his life work 
but half accomplished, was taken from among us, and lay down, 
as we do hope to pleasant dreams, and it is especially fitting 
that the Legislature of the State that gave him birth, and which 
he did so honor in later years, should pause in the midst of its 
duties, and lay a wreath of love, honor and approbation upon 
his grave. Every page of the history of Maine is bright with 
deeds of her distinguished sons, and such names as Fessenden, 
Hamlin and Blaine, Chamberlain and Berry, Drummond, Webb, 



THOMAS BRACKETT REKD. 1 5 

Dingley aiid Reed, will ever shine as bright particular stars 
among a host of eminent men. 

Mr. Reed needs no eulogy from me. Long after all of us 
who participate in these exercises to-day shall have passed to 
the great unknown and be forgotten, his name and services will 
be remembered, and he will be spoken of as the "Great 
^Speaker" — the ablest statesman of his time. 

I knew him for many years ; — he was my tutor in my boyhood 
days, and he honored me with his friendship in later years ; and 
therefore it is with deep feelings of love and respect that I to-day 
offer this slight tribute to his memory. 



REMARKS OF HON. GEORGE H. SMITH, REPRE- 

SENTATI-VE FROM PRESQUE ISLE. 
Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

There is an old Arabian proverb which says that death is a 
camel that kneels at every man's door. And we have met to-day 
in joint assembly for the purpose of paying our tribute of respect 
and esteem to the memory of one of the distingxiished sons of 
Maine, before whose door the camel has recently knelt. 

Within the personal recollection of many of us, several of the 
able and distinguished men of Maine, men who have left a deep 
and lasting impress upon the history of our State and Nation, 
have been borne away by this same camel — Fessenden, Hamlin, 
Blaine, Dingley, Boutelle, Milliken— names as familiar as house- 
hold words. 

Thomas B. Reed stood in the front rank of men such as these, 
and in power, ability, mtegrity and strength of character, he was 
their peer and their equal. Like them, he was not only endowed 
with great intellectual pov/er, but like them also he was honest 
'\ and upright in all his dealings with his fellow men. The smell 
of fire was never upon his garments. He never prostituted his 
great power and ability. Neither love for friend, nor fear of 
foe ever caused him to swerve the breadth of a single hair from 
what he believed to be right. His superb honesty and high 
conception of right, is strikingly evidenced by the fact that he 
(Was poor when he entered Congress, he remained poor while in 
Congress and he was poor when he left Congress. Yet his high 
position as the great Speaker of the National House of Repre- 
sentatives, together with the mighty influence and power which 
his exalted position gave him, must have opened before him 



THOMAS bracke;tt re;sd. 17 

many questionable avenues of wealth, but with his strong sense 
of honor, he scorned to enter the golden doors so invitingly held 
open — a temptation to which a weaker man than he might have 
yielded. And the fact that he did not use his position and power 
^ for his own private gain, is one of the brightest gems in the crown 
a of his great fame. 

When occasion required, he could strike mighty blows, but 
they were always struck on the side of what he believed to be 
right. And when he struck, he made himself felt. To be sure 
his blows were not like those of Saladin v/ho with a single deft 
stroke of his cimiter severed in twain the gossamer handkerchief 
floating in mid air, but rather they were like the blows of 
Richard, the lion-hearted, who with one stroke of his mighty 
sword cleft the ingot of iron. 

The State of Mame, without regard to party or creed, rejoices 
in his great fame which is a part of her glory. His name is 
written in letters of burnished gold, high in the list of her many 
illustrious sons and many long generations will pass away before 
Speaker Reed is forgotten by his State and country. 



REMARKS OF HON. GEORGE C. WING OF AUBURN, 

SENATOR FROM ANDROSCOGGIN COUNTY. 
Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

Nearly nineteen hundred years ago the Divine Man, our 
Savior, pronounced an eulogium upon an absent friend in less 
than three lines, the burning words of which have outlived and 
outshone all contemporaneous panegyrics. "Among them that 
are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the 
Baptist." These words, few and simple though they be, will 
last while time endures. When all the applause created by the 
fulsome praises spoken of the living and the dead during all the 
centuries which have intervened are forgotten, and the voices 
which gave utterance thereto and the echoes thereof are still and 
lost, this simple tribute will stand out boldly and grandly as the 
treasured expression of Him who spoke as never man spake. 

The State of Maine, though less than a century old, has upon 
her roll the names of most distinguished and honorable sons, 
whose lives, characters and deeds are interwoven with the history 
of our country, and the management of its most important con- 
cerns , statesmen of worldwide celebrity, with wise discrimina- 
tion imd broad-minded integrity, who have paid obedience to no 
command but the will of heaven ; clergymen whose pious minis- 
trations in the quiet and peaceful circles of life have elevated 
the standard of public and private morals, and have been a solace 
and benediction ; heroes whose deeds of valor, performed in the 
line of duty for the cause of their country, are preserved in song 
and story, and whose names will ever be held in tenderest 
remembrance by a proud and grateful people ; and poets, too, 
wiih felicity of thought and grace and charm of expression, 



THOMAS BRACKKTT RE^D. I9 

whose songs and verse are ?nng with pleasure and delight the 
world around — but no name among them all is more highly 
honored, and no memory more deeply treasured than that of my 
friend and your friend, our own citizen, the great commoner, 
Thomas B. Reed. 

He was to the manner born ; he was our great representative 
citizen, bom, bred and educated in Maine, and during all that 
illtistrious career which gave him a worldwide name and fame, 
he hailed from Maine, our own State, and his death was and is 
irreparable, not only to the world and the great city, that great 
metiopolis which he had made his business home, but to Maine, 
who clauned him as her own, her son. 

When the history of our own day and time is finally written, 
the name of Reed will occupy a full page, and when thereafter 
that page is read, a sigh of deep regret will ever express lament 
that the world was too early deprived of the originality, the 
mental vigor and prowess, and the positive character of this 
great man, while he was yet in the full enjoyment of complete 
strength of mind and intellectual power. 

Let us not permit his name and fame to be forgotten. Let 
us cherish his noble and manly virtues and endeavor to kindle 
the fires of ambition within the hearts and minds of our youth to 
emulate his example, and may v.^e set aside a place in our public 
archives where the memory of this great citizen shall be kept 
forever green. 

His was a busy life — a constant struggle, but a succession of 
most brilliant victories. When the end came and the light went 
out, all classes and conditions of men, representing all shades of 
opinion, at once paused to reverently and with uncovered head, 
give united expression of sincere sorrow at his death, to pay 
solemn tribute to his greatness, and sign the universal verdict 
of mankind throughout the world, that Thomas Brackett Reed *' 
was a Christian gentleman, a great and incorruptible statesman, j 
an eminent, resourceful and accomplished lawyer, and an honest • 
man. 



I 



REMARKS OF HON. CYRUS W. DAVIS, REPRESENTA- 
TIVE FROM W/vTERVILLE. 

Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

This august assemblage, this hour this place echoing yet with 
the statesmanship of that distinguished citizen whose memory 
we cherish, admonishes us that the emotions of our hearts and 
not our spoken words, are the sincerest endorsement of the reso- 
lutions now before this Convention. 

In the words of Daniel Webster, "If there be an>i:hing in asso- 
ciations fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to 
repress the emotions which agitate us here." 

Your Excellency, a gigantic pine has fallen — reared in the 
grand old State of Maine, where excellence in statesmanship has 
ever been an object lesson to our youth; where in the light of 
the constitution is taught the fundamental doctrine that the 
nation rests in the cottage; that morality is the enduring basis 
of true greatness. Thomas Brackett Reed was a natural product ; 
and his inheritance of courage, of manliness, of independence, 
of adherence to principle, was but a logical sequence. 

These environs, these mental and moral furnishings, made his 
pathway from the obscure advocate in his native town in 1865, 
to membership in the House in 1868, to the Senate in 1870, to 
attorney general in 1871 and 1872, to the National House in 
1877 and to the Speakership in 1889 and again in 1897, a royal 
highwav without crook or turn. 

Speaker Reed was too broad an American to adhere unfalter- 
ingly to party usage or yield to party pressure against his per- 
sonal convictions. He never subscribed to the toast: "Our 
country always right, but right or wrong, our country." 



THOMAS ERACKETT REED. 21 

On the 27th of February, 1882. in that memorable Garfield 
memorial address in Congress, James G. Blaine made the asser- 
tion, that the three distinguished parliamentary leaders hitherto 
developed in this country were. Clay, Douglass and Stevens. To 
this distinguished list must now be added the illustrious name of 
Reed ; for while Clay at 64 took the control of the Whig Party 
from the President who had received their suffrages— with 
Webster and Choate opposed and while Douglass forced Con- 
gress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and while 
Stevens advanced his parliamentary leadership until Congress r^ 
tied the hands of the President, ^Ir. Reed against entrenchedii/ 
precedent and usage, compelled a reluctant House to legislate ;j/ 
and thus inaugurated a new departure from established parlia-J 
mentary proceedings in the American Congress. 

Words faintly express our admiration for such a son of the 
Pine Tree State, or our loss in his departure from us. 

Did I say a gigantic pine had fallen? Let us change the 
simile. A new fixed star shines in the Maine constellation; a 
star shines with lustre undimmed upon the pathway of duty and 
devotion to state and country which stretches before us. 

We have a truer conception of loyalty to high ideals because 
of this illustrious citizen. His niche in the Hall of Fame and his 
place on the illumined page of historv^ are both secure. :^ray 
the day never come when these stalwart types of true American 
greatness under a Democracy cease to be a Maine product. 

Your Excellency, I heartily endorse the resolutions now before 
this joint convention. 



REMARKS OF HON. C. H. SMITH, REPRESENTA- 
TIVE FROM HARTLAND. 
Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

It is not my purpose to attempt any extended eulogy on the 
illi;strious life work of this illustrious statesman. It is not for 
me to seek to penetrate the veil and speak of him in that sphere 
as husband and father, as neighbor or townsman. More 
eloquent lips than mine can tell that which was his noblest calling 
and highest attainment. His love and affection for family and 
home. Others are here to tell the story of his kindness and 
loyalty to friend and kinsman. It is sufficient for me to con- 
tribute but a word, to bring a single flower of tender memory to 
add my little wreath of affectionate admiration in behalf of his 
sacred memory. Who of us, that have not observed while scan- 
ning the blue heavens above, with her millions of sparkling 
worlds, scattered sparingly here and there, a majestic star, pour- 
ing forth her richer and more radiant rays, surpassing all others. 
How true we find this of mankind. The laws of creation, having 
heir to us now and then a great and natural leader, towering far 
above his fellow beings, conspicuous among the distinguished 
sons reared from the rugged hills of the old Pine Tree State, is 
one whose name is not only familiar to the children of our every 
village, )iamlet and town but of our South beneath her sunny 
skies, in distant California amid her fields of golden rocks, and 
yea, in far away New Zealand the name of Thomas Brackett Reed 
is written there. 

A soldier has fallen. A hero is dead. Not while on the 
battlefield, amid the rush of contending parties ; nor while in 
gallant leadership, leading his party onward and onward in her 



THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 23 

every charge, with victory ever in hand, for he had laid down 
the gavel, and ceased to participate in the great political arena 
of his life. But we can never forget how we have known of him 
in this very hall, a leader of leaders, champion of champions. 
How we have known of him at Washington, confronted with the 
fiery blasts of jealousy and a divided house. How we have 

1 known of him as emancipating his people from the shackles of 
a filibustering contingent in the National House of Representa- 
tives. How we have known of him when our very hearts were 
beating that he might be selected as our standard bearer and 
chief magistrate over the grandest Nation ever visited by man- 
kind. But he had met his final conqueror, and sank beneath his 
icy breath. Though silent is the grave, death can claim no 
victory. For that master mind, the handy work of the eternal 
God, will shine brighter day by day, while all others may grow 
dim with the space of time. His works are ended. No man can 
tell the results of his labors. But from memories shrine his 
name can never be effaced. The dreams of childhood and visions 
of old age vanish. Flowers bloom, blush and fade away. Stars 
fall from heaven and leave no trace behind them. But a life 
like Thomas Brackett Reed can never run its course and be for- 
gotten, and when the fettered fangs of eternity were bearing his 
soul away, his life was just beginning. 



REMARKS OF HON. ISAIAH K. STETSON OF BAN- 
GOR, SENATOR FROM PENOBSCOT COUNTY. 

Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

1 have been requested to add a few words to the noble thoughts 
which have been spoken to-day, expressing as they have, the 
sorrow we feel for the death of our illustrious statesman, Thomas 
B. Reed. 

We have listened to the history of his life, including as it has, 
his great services to our State and nation, and while the narra- 
tive was being told, we were conscious of a proud feeling for the 
man, who had made the name of our good old State illustrious 
in the legislative hall of our country, and as we listened, we 
pondered on the source and strength of his character, which 
indeed made him stand out as a man among men. 

It is worthy that our first thoughts should be given to grief, 
as we realize the loss our State and nation have sustained. 

A strong man has departed and those who have preceded me 
have given their estimate of his character, of his life and of his 
genius. 

They have expressed their sense of the great loss to our coun- 
try and to his friends. A loss incapable of repair, but a loss that 
fills us with patriotic pride and fondness, and one which we will 
cherish, and consign to historv', in the memory of a strong and 
great man. 

It was in this hall that he first promised to maintain the laws 
of our State, and it was here while a representative for two 
terms, that his voice was heard in defense of our State and her 
rights. 



THO]V[AS BRACKKTT REED. 25 

It IS well for us all, in the busy struggles and ambitions of life, 
when death has taken away a leader among men, to pause and 
to take one's thoughts away from worldly affairs, and bid the 
departed a farewell, before the "ranks close up and the column 
presses on." 

In this room, where we may almost fancy there may still linger 
some echo of his familiar voice, it is most appropriate that we 
pay our fond, just tribute to his virtues and his memory. 

We all realized his great mental attainments, and were con- 
scious of the great strength and breadth of his mind, for it is 
well known that he was a lover of learning and he had that union 
of acuteness, judgment, and human feeling that makes a success- 
ful lawyer, and at the time of his death, he stood as one of the 
foremost jurists of our countrv. 

As wc review nis life, the strong points in his character, which 
are firmly impressed on my mind, are his great administrative , 
ability, his simplicity of personal qualities and his honesty and, 
steadfastness of purpose. 

These characteristics, to me, stamped him as one of the strong- 
est of men, and what the greatest of the Greek historians said of 
Egricles , might equally well be said of our lamented friend : "He ^ 
did not so much follow as lead the people, because he framed 
not his words to please them, like one who is gaining power by 
unworthy means, but was able and dared, on the strength of his 
high character, even to brave their anger by contradicting their 
will." 

In closing, I will add, that his name stands the highest in the 
h:-t of distinguished men who have occupied the great office of 
Speaker of tlie National House, and that to-day we mourn the 
loss of a distinguished official and an honest man. 



/ 



REMARKS OF HON. JOSEPH W. PERKINS, REPRE- 
SENTATIVE FROM WILTON. 
Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

I hope I shall not be considered obtrusive, if on this occasion 
for a brief moment, I mingle my humble voice with those whose 
ability I shall neither attempt or hope to equal, who have sought 
to do justice to the worth and memory of the deceased. 

There is a lesson taught no less in the death than in the life of 
every man — eminently so in the case of one v/ho has filled a large 
space and occupied a distinguished position in the thoughts and 
regard of his fellow-men. Thomas Brackett Reed, born in Port- 
land, in 1839, received the advantages of an early school train- 
ing, and was graduated from Bowdoin College in i860. Inl 
succession he was tv;ice a member of this House, a State senator, 
and attorney general. In 1876 he was elected a member of the 
National House of Representatives, and for twenty-two years, 
either as Speaker of the House or leader of the Republican forces, 
he was the central figure of that body. In 1899 he laid aside the 
cares, anxieties and honors of a political life and returned to the 
practice of law in the city of New York. By his death our coun- 
try has lost one of its most eminent citizens and statesmen. His 
distinguished services as representative. State senator and attor- 
ney general in his native State, and as representative and Speaker 
of the National House of Representatives, are inseparably con- 
nected with the history of his country. He has in all these 
positions, exhibited a wisdom and patriotism which have made 
a deep and lasting impression upon the grateful hearts of his j 
countrymen. His character was formed and developed by the 
influence of our free institutions. That the physical, mental and 



THOMAS ERACKETT REED. 27 

moral faculties of Mr. Reed were superior to those of most men, 
cannot be questioned. They were not cultivated, improved and 
directed by any influence or circumstances wholly outside him- 
self. 

The road to wealth, to honor and to fame was open to him 
only through his own efforts ; but he very soon made a deep and 
favorable impression upon the people of his native State, and 
upon the nation at large. His integrity, and his public and 
piivatc life were absolutely spotless, his habits were temperate 
and his life simple. 

He loved his old Portland home and his friends in that city \ 
above all else. At the bar and in his legislative services, he 
manifested those high qualities as a public speaker, which have 
secured for him so much popular applause and admiration. His 
physical and mental organization eminently qualified him to 
become a great and impressive speaker. 

These personal advantages won the prepossessions of an audi- 
ence, even before Ins intellectual powers began to move his 
hearers; and when his strong common sense, his profound { 
reasoning, his clear conceptions of his subject in all its bearings, ' 
and his striking and beautiful illustrations, united with such per- 
sonal qualities were brought to the discussion of any question, 
hiS audience was enraptured and convinced. His voice is silent 
on earth forever. The darkness of death has obscured the luster 
of his eye. But the memory of his services, not only in the State 
of Maine, not only to the United States, but for the cause of right/ 
and progress throughout the world, will live through future ages/ 
as a bright example, stimulating and encouraging his own coun- 
trymen and the people of all nations in their patriotic devotions 
to country and humanit>. 



REMARKS OF HON. HAROLD M. SEW ALL, REPRE- 
SENTATIVE FROM BATH. 

Your Bxcellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

Sagadahoc can la} claim to none of the peculiar relations 
which existed between other constituencies represented here, and 
that leader and master of men who is gone. 

We were of his political household, but our seat was not at his 
table. Not even from the abundant surplus of our endorsement 
of the principles of his party which we never failed to give, were 
we permitted to contribute to the suffrage which maintained him 
in that position his genius was so to exalt. He was educated, 
it IS true, in the classic shades just beyond our borders, and some 
of the chosen friends of his youth Vvcre from our city. But these 
were ancient ties long since dissolved. He had become to us, in 
the vernacular of the coast, as a craft with whose build we were 
once familiar, but which had, since leaving us, acquired such j 
breadth of beam, and draft of water, that we could no longer 
expect to see her navigate in our vicinity. 

Mr. President, eulogy, eulogy of the sort common to these ^ 
occasions, eulog} without discrimination, seems out of place here. \ 
He would not have had it. It was distasteful to the living. It 
were scarcely less than disloyalty to the dead. 

Even this ceremony, so natural and gratifying to us, would 
not have been of his choosing. He believed that public servants 
v/cre trustees of the people's time, and that these ceremonies were 
wasteful of that time. He used to cite with approbation, you 
will remember, the instance of the death of that other great 
Commoner, John Bright, and the action of the British House 



THOMAS BRACKE'TT REED. 29 

of Commons, which, when he died, decided it would best honor 
his memory by proceeding with the country's business. 

Speakmg, then, with the frankness which he demanded frorh 
others if they were to have his respect, we may not conceal the 
fact tlxat we did not always agree with him. But if he differed, 
he did not dissemble. A.nd our troubles in life, whether in poli- 
tics or any otiier relation, come not from such men as he, but 
from such as he was not, from those who being all things to all 
men, end in the final analysis in being but one thing to all men,, 
and that falsity itself. And this was his greatest service, that 
he ma(.l(.L.sincerity a je\\el to be prized even in politics, and that 
he wrote down in the lexicon of politics, so that he who runs may 

£'ad and read forever, the lack of sincerity as the basest and 
ost unpardonable of sins. It cost him dear, it cost him success 
1 a politician in the popular acceptation of the term, it cost him — 
who that knows will say what it did not cost him ? 

But all this was not to be in vain. Reed hastened the coming 
of another day, a da} when public service shall be emancipated 
from the stigma too often attaching to it, the stigma of selfish- 
ness, of unworthy motives and corrupt methods, when public 
service shall stand for Vvhat he stood ffor, devotion to country, 
without fear and without reproach, for comparative poverty, too, 
if in this poverty it shall have been begun. 

And when that day comes, as come it must and will, men shall 
dare to proclaim themselves what they are, and not profess to be 
what they are not, to catch the passing fancy. It will be a day 
of intrepidity of intellect which will refuse, as his refused, to 
take on "the harness of routine and obsequiousness." Partisan- 
ship there shall be in that day, warm and ardent as was his own, 
but it shall be a partisanship which will elevate, as he elevated, 
political discussion to the plane of philosophy. A partisanship 
too v>^hich shall recognize the truth as he recognized and declared 
it. that thrice in a century the time comes when it is the duty 



\ 



30 MIJMORIAL ADDRESSES. 

of every honest man "to reconsider his situation and to see if 
his party means what he means." 

Reed did this for posterity, if not for us, and posterity will 
account him great. The world did so while he was yet of it, 
and such a verdict history does not set aside. 



REMARKS OF HON. FORREST GOODWIN OF SKOW- 
HEGAN, SENATOR FROM SOMERSET COUNTY. 

Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

I hold It one of the gieatest privileges of my life, in my humble 
way, to bring the tribute of one flower of love to lay upon the 
grave of him, whose death we mourn today ; and if every friend 
of his, throughout the length and breadth of this fair land, should 
bring but one flower to his grave, that grave would be a very 
wilderness of flowers, wherein the odor of the orange blossoms 
of the South, and the roses of the West would mingle with the 
perfume of the pine. 

For Mr. Reed had "troops" of friends. He was not, as has 
often been written, cold and cynical. He was a kind and lovable 
man ; genial and generous, sympathetic and loyal ; and those who 
were once admitted to the magic circle of his friendship, were 
bound to him by hooks of steel. 

He was suigularly pure in his private life, his habits, his 
thoughts and associates. I never heard him utter a profane 
or improper word, or voice a sentiment that the purest lady in 
the land might not have heard. 

Mr. Reed was mlensely independent, absolutely self-reliant. 
Brave and courageous, he never weakened in the face of oppo- 
sition. Honest and incorruptible, he never "crooked the preg- 
nant knee, that thrift might follow fawning." After twenty 
years of public service, he laid down the gavel of the House, 
and, like Cincinnatus of old, returned to his early vocation to 
earn a competency for himself and family, as poor as when he 
entered the puolic service. A splendid commentary on the native 
integrity and honesty of a great statesman. An honorable 



32 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 

example for the illustrious youth who would follow in his foot- 
steps. 

He never hurried, yet he was always prepared. He never 
did a great act but that he seemed capable of doing a greater. 
He was possessed to a wonderful degree of reserve power. 

The Speaker's room at Washington, during his rule, was the 
rendezvous of the brightest minds of our country. Eminent 
scientists, famous writers, powerful financial magnates, and great 
social leaders, all found in him a receptive mind and a sympa- 
thetic listener. 

He was a philosopher, accurate in his judgment of his fellow 
man. In a single sentence he could sum up the foibles and weak- 
ness of mankuid. Once, in the Speaker's room, during the 
quorum fight, a Southern Congressman came into the room, and 
told Mr. Reed, with extravagant praise, what a great man he 
was, that his ruling wab right, and only the stress of party politics 
made him oppose the same. Mr. Reed received it all with his 
usual politeness, and when the Congressman had retired, he 
turned in his chair and said, "You want to beware of a statesman, 
v'lien he begins to exude molasses." 

He grasped a situation quickly, and at once perceived the weak 
points of his adversary's case. At one time after he had made 
his quorum ruling, he counted as present, those who refused to 
vote ; and his opponents rising from their seats, and wildly ges- 
ticulating, surged down the aisles, crying out "Czar! Usurper! 
Tyrant!" As soon as he could make himself heard his voice 
rang out m that inimitable drawl of his : "Will the gentlemen, 
who say they are not present, please resume their seats?" The 
sarcasm of that single sentence brought them to a realizing sense 
of the absurdity of their position, as nothing else could do. 

Before Mr. Reed, we had two great Speakers of the House of 
Representatives, Mr. Clay and Mr. Blaine. Both were aggres- 
sive, eager, earnest and quick to strike when the opportunity 



THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 33 

offered. In all this, Mr. Reed was their equal. But he was 
their superior in his ability to command and lead his followers 
on to victory. He was the greatest parliamentarian our tountry 
has ever known. He dominated the House of Representatives. 
He ruled it with a master hand. 

1 always think of Mr. Reed presiding over the House of Rep- 
resentatives, as some colossal god of mythology, dispensing 
justice to humanity, adored and loved by his followers; feared, 
yet admired by his enemies. 

Sir, the mystery of death has never yet been solved. We do 
not know, when we wrap the mantle of the grave about us, 
whether we shall lie down to dreamless sleep through all eternity, 
or shall awaken with the coming of another dawn in a new world, 
where the flowers always bloom and the birds forever sing. But, 
bir, if there is anything that teaches me to believe in immortality, 
and 1-nakes me think there is a life beyond the grave, it is the fact 
that the great mind, the comprehensive intellect, the loving heart 
and infinite genius of Thomas Brackett Reed cannot be lost and 
gone forever. Somewhere, in the great mystery of the future, 
that mighty spirit must be working out the problems of eternity, 
and waiting upon the other shore, with loving eagerness, for the 
coming of the loved ones, whom he left behind. The star that 
sets must rise again. 

In this legislative hall, Mr. Reed began his career, which cul- 
minated in so much honor and renown. It is eminently fitting, 
that, in this same hall, the people of the State he loved so well, 
should pay to him the last sad rites of mortality. 

His life work is o'er, but his influence will be felt as long as 
ji legislative bodies convene, or governments of, for and by the 
^reople endure. 



LofC. 



34 MEMORIAL ADDRi;SSES. 

"Were a star quenched on high, 
For ages would its light, 
Still travelling downward from the sky, 
Shine on our mortal sight. 
So when a great man dies. 
For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him, lies 
Upon the paths of men." 



REMARKS OF HON. EDWARD C. SWETT, REPRE- 
SENTATIVE FROM PORTLAND. 

Your Excellency and Gentlemen of the Assembly: 

Whoever has visited tlie Smithsonian Institute in Washington 
and looked upon tiie rehcs and mementoes of our great men, the 
arms and accoutrements of Grant, the desk of Lincoln, the pen 
of Webster, the uniform and equipments of Jackson, the staff of 
Franklin and the sword of Washington, has felt the natural 
impulse to take some of these objects in his hands, to poise and 
weigh and measure thein, but has been deterred by the caution- 
ary placard "Not to be handled," placed there lest some too 
curious or careless hand should disturb the careful arrangement 
or expose some flaw or weakness wb.ich might damage or destroy 
the sacred relic. 

And often as we contemplate the lives and records of the dead, 
"de mortuis ml nisi bonum,'' reminds us like the cautionary 
placard not to investigate or scrutinize too closely. 

But no such charitable precaution is necessary as we review 
.the life of Thomas B. Reed. His bitterest enemy might write 
the record of his life and if he set down nothing but the truth, 
his dearest friend would not desire to expurgate a page or para- 
graph. His character, like virgin gold, withstands the acid of 
all criticism. 

He was not typical. Pie was unique. He suggests no other 
Statesman whom the English-speaking world has produced. 

He combined the brilliant power of leadership of James G. 
^Blaine, the rugged honesty of Hannibal Hamlin, the puritan 
'integrity of purpose of William Pitt Fessenden, the simple 
, modesty of Grant, the wit and huiuor of Lincoln, the profound 




36 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 

/Avisdom of Webster, the dauntless determination of Jackson, the 
' keen philosophy of Franklin, and the pure patriotism of Wash- 
ington, with a body, brain, heart, soul and mind of equal titanic 
stature. 

"The front of Jove himself, 
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; 
A combination and a form indeed, 
Where every god did seem to set his seal 
To give the world assurance of a man." 

And from the Canada line to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic 
\o the Pacific ocean, in all the length and breadth of our fair 
land, there .vas nothing that was more American than he. 
, It has been said that no man of our times in Congress, has 
teen less understood, outside of Washington. Two comments 
frequently made show how superficial and uninformed was th^ 
general opmion of him throughout the country. One was that 
he Avas not a constructive statesman, and the other that he could 
not maive a successful long speech. In the twenty-two years of 
his service in the House, he had no opportunity to fasten his 
name on any important measure. For all but eight years of the 
time, his party was in the minority, while for six out of the eight 
years he was in the chair. Yet no man living or dead had more 
to do with constructing the legislation passed by the House, 
when his party was m the majority. While he was Speaker he 
made the legislation ot the party besides making it possible. He 
was the master of his own side before he was the master of the 
Houce. 

When he began his parliamentary reform, in the fifty-first 
Congress, with a narrow Republican majority, enough Repub- 
licans disagreed with him to have defeated his purpose, if they 
had opposed him openly. He thought out then what he would 
do, if his Republican opponents united with the Democrats 
against him. He would have announced his resignation and 



THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 37 

retired from Congress. But, although some strong men on the 
RepubHcan side differed with him, they did not venture to oppose 
him puiohcly, after the great shout of triumph that went up from 
the Repubhcans when he began so suddenly to count a quorum. 
From that time he was the constructive statesman of the House, 
for six \earS; and until he left it. It is true that he did not often 
make long speeches, but that was because he did not like long 
speeches, and never made them if he could help it. He thought 
that a man ought to be able to say all that was worth saying in 
a shoi t speech, unless the circum.stances were very exceptional, 
and that, as a rule, long speeches were artificial, and he hated 
anything that was artificial. 

A striking illustration of this point occurred in the debate 
upon the quorum rule. A distinguished Democrat, a former 
Speaker of the House, had made an able and elaborate argument 
against the right and power of the presiding officer to count him 
as present if he declined to answ^er to the roll-call; but his argu- 
ment was swept away, and destroyed by Mr. Reed's comment, 
"The gentleman has consumed an hour and a half in endeavoring 
to prove to the House that he is not here." 

There were no theatricals in his statesmanship, no posing for 
popularity, no catering for applause. 

"He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 
Nor Jove for's power to thunder." 

At the supr&me^mofflentr-of^Inrpt^^ life, when he emanci- 
pated parliamentary procedure by the boldest, bravest and wisest 
decision that ever emanated from the presiding officer of the 
greatest legislative body in the world ; he encountered the fiercest 
and most scurrilous assault ever made upon a presiding officer 
in the Congress of the United States. Accused of seeking to 
put upon his head a crown of glor>- at the expense of the rights 
A of the House of Representatives, stigmatized as "revolutionary," 



38 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 

"corrupt," "a usurper in defiance of parliamentary )law/' "a, 
scurvy politician in defiance of rig^ht and justice," denounced 
from the floor of the House as "'the worst tyrant that ever pre- 
sided over a deliberative body," he held his course serene, digni- 
fied and masterful and calmly ansv^ered: "The House will not 
allow itself to be deceived by epithets. No man can describe the 
action and judgment of this Chair in language which will endure 
unless that description be true. Whatever is done, has been done 
in the face of the world, and is subject to its discriminating 
judgment." 

For this greatest service rendered to the National House of 
Representatives since the adoption of the constitution, he was 
refused the customary courtesy of the unanimous thanks of the 
House to a retiring Speaker, for the first time in the history of 
the country ; and in the solitude of the Speaker's room, with his 
noble head bowed uj on his desk, and his great heart full to over- 
flowing, in bitter tears he reali.:ed the irony of greatness. 

"He who ascends to mountain tops shall find. 

The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow, 

He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 

Must look down on the hate of those below. 

Though high above the Sun of Glory glow, 

And far beneath the Earth and ocean spread, 

Round him are icy rocks and loudly blow 

Contending tempests on his naked head, 

And thus reward the toils which to those summits lead." 

But his justification was swift, full and complete, when in the 
Fifty-third Congress, paralyzed and helpless under the old rule, 
the Democratic leader rose and said : 

"This is the question of whether this House of Representatives 
of the people of the United States shall have such rules for its 
government as will enable us to do the business that our constit- 
uents have sent us here to do. We have tried the old system, 
we have been here a month without doing two days' actual busi- 



THOMAS BRACKETT R^^D. 39 

ness, and our constituents are tired of it, and I hope this House is 
tired of it ; I will hail the adoption of this rule as the dawn of 
a new era in American legislation." 

No justification could be more complete, no victory more tri- 
umphant, but with a grander grace and nobler dignity than that 
of Caesar when he put away the crown, Mr. Reed rose and said : 

''Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to address the House again upon 
the general subject. This scene here to-day is a more effective 
address than any I could make. The House is about to adopt 
the prmciple for which we contended in the Fifty-first Congress ; 
and IS about to adopt it under circumstances which show con- 
clusively to the country its value. No words that I can utter 
can add to the importance of the occasion. I congratulate the 
Fifty-thn^d Congress upon the wise decision that it is about to 
make." 

His devotion to his wife and daughter was the dominant 
feature of his life and the true index of his character. It was 
not chiefly because he differed from his party on the question of 
"imperialism" or on any other question that he resigned from 
the House ; but because he felt that he could not longer put off 
the accumulation of a competence to secure the future comfort 
of his family if he should be taken away. After a quarter of a 
century of public service, he retired from office honorably poor 
and immediately without solicitation on his part, was tendered 
a partnership in a leading New York law firm with a guaranteed 
income five times the amount of his salary as Speaker of the 
House. He was as easily pre-eminent in private life as in public 
office. He was welcomed to the highest circles of literature and 
art ; and however numerous or distinguished was the company, 
"where the Macgregor sat, was the head of the table." 

As Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United 
States he towered m the vanguard of a line of brilliant statesmen. 



P-- t^O 



XI- 



40 MEMORIAL ADDRESSES. 



like Saul among the Apostles. As leader of the Republican 
minority, he stood in the gap at the head of his decimated cohort, 
holding the pass against all odds, and single-handed, in the midst 
of mighty adversaries, he was like Samson among the Philis- 
tines. Death struck him at the zenith of his fame, in full posses- 
sion of all his splendid powers of intellect, and he fell 

"As falls on Mount Alvernus, a lightning-smitten oak." 

But Death has won no victory over Thomas B. Reed. Thank 
God, there are some things that Death cannot destroy or take 
aw ay. 

"It cannot take away the grace of life — 

It's comeliness of look that virtue gives — 

It's port erect with consciousness of truth — 

It's rich attire of honorable deeds — 

It's fair report that's rife on good men's tongues — 

It cannot lay its hands on these, no more 

Than it can pluck his brightness from the Sun, 

Or with polluted finger tarnish it." 



61ST Congress \ qftsjat^t? /Document 

3d Session ] bt.NAlt. | No. 864 



THOMAS BRACKETT REED 

ADDRESS 

BY 

HON. SAMUEL W. McCALL 

UPON THE UNVEILING OF 
THE MONUMENT OF 

HON. THOMAS BRACKETT REED 

AT PORTLAND, ME. 
AUGUST 31, 1910 










PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE 



March 3, 1911. — Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1911 



lV3 \ , 






ADDRESS BY HON. SAMUEL W. McCALL UPON 
.. THE UNVEILING OF THE MONUMENT OF 
^ HON. THOMAS BRACKETT REED, AT PORT- 
£ LAND, ME., AUGUST 31, 1910. 



^ A statue of a human figure, which does not represent a mere ab- 
straction but a real and once breathing man, draws much of its sig- 
nificance from the nature of the forces creating it and also from a 
fit association with the spot where it is reared. At a time when 
government is expected to do everything, it is becoming quite too 
much the fashion to build monuments by law and pay for them by 
money taken by taxation from the people. The tribute thus ren- 
dered involves no special sense of sacrifice on the part of any human 
being. It is indeed cold compared with that which is paid by vol- 
untary gifts and comes springing from the hearts of the givers. In 
one of tlie public squares of Washington stands a figure of Lincoln. 
It is not striking merely as a work of art, but it acquires a beauty 
and a pathos from the fact that it was reared by many small gifts 
from men and women whom his immortal proclamation had made 
free. It is surely a felicity that the statue of Thomas Brackett Eeed 
which you unveil to-day should have been raised by the free gifts of 
those who knew and loved him and not from a levy upon any public 
treasury. Nothing could be happier also than its association with 
the spot where it is placed. It is ideally fitting that it should stand 
in the streets where he once played as a boy, in the city where he 
was born and lived nearly his whole life through, and where he now 
rests from his labors. I imagine you did not have in mind at all 
the last sentence of that beautiful speech of his spoken here a quarter 
of a century ago, but how perfectly this occasion seems to respond 
to it : 

Whatever fame great achievements may bestow, whatever honors the world 
may give, it is ever the most cherished hope of every seeljer after fame or 
fortune to be kindly remembered and lovingly honored on the spot which gave 
him birth. 

It is no common thing for the citizens of a city like this, the com- 
mercial capital of a great State, to set up a statue in its streets, and 
we are now to render some answer to the question. What reason justi- 
fies this hour and what is its real meaning? The answer was sim- 
pler, although the occasion had no greater merit when you were put- 
ting up the statue of Longfellow ; and it was simpler because of the 
diflFerence in the nature of their work between a poet and a states- 
man. The statesman lives in the field of practical controversy; the 
poet in the realm of ideals. It is not an uncommon fate of poets to 
be neglected in their lifetime and to have their birthdays celebrated in 
after generations. But the statesman is feted in his life and too 
commonly forgotten when he is dead. It is not difficult, I think, to 



4 THOMAS BlIACKETT KEED. 

find the reason for this difference. The poet, if he be a real one as 
yours Avas, deals not with the shifting conditions of the time, but 
with what Sainte-Benve called " the eternal humanity." Time takes 
little from the sweetness of his pongs, and ages after he is gone they 
go as freshly and as wannly to the hearts of men as when they first 
drojjped from his lips. 

And the genuine j^oet sings not merely to other ages, but to other 
countries than his own, and there is a simplicity and a universality 
to his fame. But the statesman has to do w^ith the complex machin- 
ery of the State, never more complex than now, and however ar- 
dently he may wish to realize his ideals and fly above the clouds, 
he may not get too far from the earth without coming suddenly 
too near it with the vast interests in his keeping, in the collapse of 
a general ruin. He deals, too, with the shifting sands of popular 
opinion instead of with the " eternal humanity " and the absorbing 
issues of to-day are thrust aside by the aggTessive issues of to-mor- 
row and are forgotten. Much of his work is blended into the gen- 
eral aggregate of social achievement and does not stand visibly by 
itself. His fame is less universal since the barriers of patriotism 
often hedge it in. But yet he richly earns the gratitude of his time 
and of posterity, if he does his duty well, for the State is an indis- 
pensable instrument of civilization, making it possible for men to 
thrive, for cities to spring up, for poets to sing, and, indeed, for 
society to exist. And so you lionor to-day one who deserved the 
name of statesman in the noblest meaning it can have with us, since 
it is men like him who keep the idea of representative government 
from dying out. He was not lacking in the practical touch de- 
manded by the nature of his work, and yet practical as his work was 
we shall see how finely and firmly he lived up to his ideals. 

In order the better to understand what manner of man he was, 
let us consider the character of the stock from which he sprung. 
For two centuries before he was born his ancestors in nearly every 
line dwelt along the seacoast now^ included in Maine. It was not one 
of the great settlements which George Cleve, himself an ancestor of 
Eeed, planted on the shores of Casco Bay, but no other settlement in 
America can claim a more stirring and dramatic history. Cleve was 
as masterful a man as ever led out a colony to found a new empire. 
He was an independent in religion, but his little settlement was not 
entirely niade up of those who believed in his own creed. The Royal- 
ist, free-living element among them occasionally became conspicuous 
and gave themselves some of the pleasures of life, although it is not 
easy to imagine a narrower range of gayety than that spread before 
them. After a little time Massachusetts asserted its title to this 
coast, and, with the aid of the whipping post and the ducking stool, 
planted a civilization here upon the most austere Puritan models. 
The Cleve settlement was upon a dangerous frontier, with the Indian 
and Fi-enchman to the north. More than once during its first century 
it was all but obliterated in Indian wars. Portland was depopulated 
and remained a waste place for a generation. The original settlement 
was almost purely of the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon stock, Puritan 
chiefly, though with a touch of what was called the Cavalier, and 
it was augmented by additions from the Massachusetts Puritan 
and Pilgrim, and later by an infusion of the Scotch-Irish and the 
Huguenot bloods. 



THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 5 

But it remained decidedly Anglo-Saxon. Two centuries after it 
had been planted it is doubtful whether a population more purely of 
the English blood could have been found anywhere, either in the old 
country or in the new. It was thus of the great imperial race of the 
world. From one motive or another, that race has spread from its 
little island nest into the empty lands over all the habitable globe, 
carrying with it a genius for self-government and planting every- 
Avhere free commonwealths. Its instinct for government is so per- 
sistent that even Avhen it has emptied the jails of London and sent 
forth i^enal colonies it has after a time, like flowing water, worked 
itself pure and exhibited again the spirit of orderly government. 
Sidney Smith w^as not simj^ly employing the touch of the satirist 
when he predicted that the time might come when some Botany Bay 
Tacitus would record the crimes and splendors of an emperor lineallj'' 
descended from a London pickpocket. 

The men who founded the State of Maine were the choicest speci- 
mens of the English race. They were willing to face the perils of 
the ocean, at that time terrible in reality and more terrible still to 
the imagination ; to brave a rigorous climate ; to strive to wring a 
living from an infertile soil and from the sea; and to wage long 
wars against the red man in order that they might enjoy civil and 
religious liberty. While the original purity of the stock has been 
unimpaired, the psychologists of the Nation tell us that a new race 
practically has been evolved from this intense struggle and this new 
environment, with strong, new qualities grafted upon the old. 

Reed's first ancestor of his name in this country apparently came 
to Salem, Mass., about 1630, and the son of this ancestor found his 
wa}^ to Maine. Reed never concerned himself much about his remote 
pedigree. He accepted himself as he W'as, without a wish to invoke 
in his behalf the merit of ancestors, content to knoAv the general 
character of his stock. He once proposed a toast to Maine, settled, 
as he said, "chiefly by the blood of old England, but always prefer- 
ring liberty to ancestry." His ancestors, he once remarked, never 
held any position of great emolument, judging by his own financial 
condition when he arrived. There can be no doubt, however, of 
the excellence of the individual lines blended in him, containing as 
they did the George Cleve and the Massachusetts Puritan and Pilgrim 
strains. Some of his ancestors were captured or killed in the Indian 
wars, and another was with Paul Jones when he captured the Serajyis. 
His own father was a sea captain commanding sailing vessels in the 
coasting trade, a calling which required authority and courage. 

Reed Avas very fortunate in his education. In his later years he 
declared that he" had long thought it the greatest good fortune of his 
life that he had spent five and one-half years under Master Lyford. 
a famous teacher of the Portland Boys' High School. After a 
thorough preparation he entered Bow^doin College at the age of 16. 
The modern college had not then come into existence, and Bowdoin 
offered a course containing much Latin, Greek, and mathematics, 
with few or no elective studies, and gave the rigid discipline of the 
best American colleges at that time. It was a discipline that has bred 
scholars and poets and statesmen, teaching them how to think and 
write and speak. At the head of the faculty was Leonard Woods, 
probably as cultivated and cosmopolitan a president as could be 
found in any college of that day. He had with him a small band 



5 THOMAS BEACKETT HEED. 

of professors, iiearl,y every one of whom Avas so distinguished as to 
be knoAvn even to this time outside the circles of his own college. 
After four j^ears of study in close personal contact with such men he 
was graduated, almost the youngest man in a class numbering 55, of 
whom he Avas the leader in scholarship in the senior year and the 
fifth in average rank for the entire course. Aside from the regular 
work, he took the prize in writing, was an editor of the college paper, 
and was active in sports and in the social life of the college. We get 
a fascinating glimpse of him and of his care-free manner in a 
passage in one of his letters describing a long walk which he took 
upon a brilliant winter evening, Avhen he Avould occasionally rest 
by throwing himself on his back upon high snowdrifts and gaze 
Avonderingly upon the planet Jupiter. Enough is known of his 
college career to permit us to see his natural and easy growth and 
the spirit in Avhich he stroA^e to fashion himself in that bright morn- 
ing time — 

Ere the bot sun count 

His dewy rosary on the Eglantine. 

Those Avere four happy and fruitful years which he passed going 
in and out beneath the BrunsAvick elms, and there were few college 
men of that time Avho might not have envied him his opportunities 
for real culture and the manner in Avhich he improved them. Like 
many another American boy, he was forced to rely somewhat upon 
his own efforts to meet his college expenses. There is an ideal toucli 
in the circumstance, as if to prefigure his own career, that he was 
helped by another son of Bowdoin of kindred character who has won 
honorable place in the history of his country, William Pitt Fessenden. 
In the letter conveying payment of the full balance of the loan and 
interest young Reed gratefully wrote Fessenden : 

I have seen enough of the world to know that I might live as long again 
without finding a man Avho would do such an act of kindness in so kind a 
manner. 

In taking account of the special influences Avhich helped to mold 
his mind and fit him for the work he was to do, we must not over- 
look his serA'ice in the Civil War and his residence in California. 

He Avas accustomed afterAvards to speak lightly of his career of 
something more than a year as assistant paymaster in the NaA^y, as 
indeed he was Avont to speak lightly of anything that might seem to 
increase his own personal importance. It Avas one of the precepts 
Avhich he used to impress with a touch of drollery that " we make 
more progress by OAvning our faults than by always dwelling on our 
virtues." He might Avell have pointed out that when the ship sinks 
the paymaster is as likely to go doAvn as is the fighting sailor, but he 
said the Navy meant to him " not the roaring wind and the shrieking 
shot and shell, but smooth Avater and the most delightful time of my 
life." The Mississippi Eiver, Avhere he saw the most of his service, 
was at that time a scene of unsurpassed dramatic interest, and the 
time spent upon it, whether in fighting or not, broadened his experi- 
ence greatly, just as his residence in California in the formative days 
of that community widened the outlook of the future statesman. 

His career at the bar was admirable in its training for the public 
service. It Avas of the sort to develop Avhatever talent he had for 
the laAv, a talent that w^as certainly great. In his first five years of 



THOMAS BBACKETT REED. 7 

practice he established himself so notably that he was made the 
attorney general of his State when but 30 years old, the youngest 
age at which that office has ever been held in Maine. He was attorney 
general for three years during a time when the office dealt with a 
great variety of litigation, some of it as important as could engage 
the attention of a lawyer. He filled the place with great success. 
Then, for four years, he was counsel for the city of Portland. Thus, 
after a dozen busy years in which he maintained himself in the courts 
against lawyers of eminence, a period long enough to train him 
thoroughly as a lawyer and not so long as to put his faculties in 
perpetual slavery to that calling, and after a service in both houses 
of the Maine Legislature, he was elected to Congress at the age of 37. 

The tenn of Reed's first Congress began on the day when Gen. 
Hayes took the oath of office as President, an event which, if it did 
not inaugTiarte a neAv era, emphasized with a good deal of clearness 
an important transition in our history. It marked the end of State 
governments supported by national bayonets and witnessed the 
restoration in form at least of civil government throughout the 
Union. At the first look, the 4th of March, 1877, appeared to usher 
in a time of political sterility succeeding an heroic age. We had 
witnessed so many signal events compressed within a brief period; 
we had fought among ourselves the greatest of wars; had freed 
4,000,000 slaves, and had at once made them, so far as paper could 
do it, equal self-governing members of our great democracy, and the 
doctrine of equal rights, both civil and political, had never before 
in the history of the world been practically applied on so stupendous 
a scale. 

After these achievements we had become politically blase and the 
ordinary routine of prosperous government was sure to pall upon 
the senses. We were attuned to "the spectacle of having society ab- 
stractly reconstituted eveiy election day according to the most ideal 
models. The time that was coming in might seem humdi-um, because 
it was to succeed so impatient a regime when we strove to attain in 
a day an ultimate perfection and to experience all the sensations that 
come to a nation in a very long lifetime. 

But important questions were pressing themselves forward, not 
in a dramatic fashion, but with the quiet persistency with which 
natural laws compel attention, serious questions of governmental 
honesty, of finance, of the standard of value of our money, of taxa- 
tion — all vitally involving not merely the prosperity but the honor 
and even the stability of the Nation.' President Hayes courageously 
grappled with the new order. Although under the shadow of a 
clouded title, he won such success as to reestablish his party and, 
what is of far greater consequence, to deserve the gi-atitude of the 
oncoming generation. 

It was at the moment of this transition that Reed first took his 
seat in the House as a Republican. In the general principles of his 
party he firmly believed. Above all else he was possessed with the 
passion for human rights, which was the noblest heritage of the war. 
All issues relating to that as well as the supremacy of the Central 
Government within its sphere, the war had settled large for him. 
The House is a forum where, as he afterwards said, " distinction won 
in other fields of endeavor will sain a man a hearing for the first 
time, but not afterwards." Although he had a brilliant career at 



8 THOMAS BRACK ETT REED. 

the bar and as a member of the Maine Legislature, he had established 
no reputation of the sort that would precede him to Washington. 
He went there with the ordinary passports of the new Member, and 
his career was entirely before him. With his ideal equipment for 
the work of the House, however, it was inevitable that he should 
speedil}'^ establish himself. 

The first real opportunity came in his appointment to the coni- 
mittee to investigate charges of fraud in connection with the presi- 
dential election. The manner in which he performed his part of the 
Avork attracted the attention of the country. Most of the Republican 
leaders were disqualified from membership by the terms of the resolu- 
tion, and, although a new Member, Reed was appointed. On the 
other hand, his political opponents were the seasoned veterans of 
their party. As he said of them, the household troops were ordered 
up. In a short offhand speech upon the subject of the investigation, 
called out by an incautious attack by a member of the opposite party, 
he first gave the House a touch of his unique qualities as a debater. 
In that speech he displayed to such advantage his sarcastic humor, 
his power of repartee, and his force of arg-ument, that he took rank 
at once as the most fomiidable debater upon his side of the House. 

To trace minutely his course during his service in the House would 
be to write a history of all the important legislation of tliat period. 
T shall refer only to those subjects that clearly overshadowed all 
others in the contests of that time. We now approach a field which 
has not yet passed exclusively into the domain of the historian. Some 
of the political (|uestions of that day are still in issue and others have 
been so recently removed from politics that the fires yet smolder near 
the surface, compelling one to walk with caution. 

Upon the questions relating to the standard of our money, no clear 
line of division separated the parties. Members of each party were to 
be found upon both sides. Reed has expressed the opinion that a 
large majority of the American people favored inflation during the 
administration of President Hayes and that his courageous veto by 
arresting attention gave them a chance for reflection. Certainly their 
Representatives were ready to pass by large majorities bills for print- 
ing more greenbacks and for coining light-weight dollars. The wick- 
edness of the " bloated bondholder " seemed for the moment to engage 
the attention of that class of orators never absent in a democratic 
government who seek to win the suffrages of the people by inflaming 
them with a sense of fancied wrong. Reed's course from the outset 
was notably consistent. He stood resolutely for the maintenance of 
the gold standard. From the time when he opposed the coinage bill 
of 1878 until the final popular decree in 1896, he was the most potent 
force in the House of Representatives for maintaining gold as the 
standard of our money. The device embodied in the Sherman law, 
he was persuaded, was necessary to forestall the passage of a free- 
coinage bill, but he strongly supported President Cleveland's effort to 
repeal that law, and under his leadership the far gi'eater number of 
his party associates m the House voted for repeal. He gave the 
President unflinching support throughout the whole 'of the splendid 
fight which he made for maintaining the integi^ity of our money. 

As a constitutional result of the war, the black man was counted 
equally with the white in apportioning Representatives among the 



THOMAS BEACKETT EEED, 9 

States, and the suppression of his vote gave to the war the praeiieal 
, result of greatly increasing the political power of the southern white 
num in the National Government. Reed stood by the position of his 
party in favor of an election law to enable the vote of the colored man 
to be safely cast and honestly counted in all national elections. The 
time Avas still hot with the passions of the war and some of its fiercest 
parliamentary contests Avere waged over this question. 

The tariff struggle has been a perennial one since the adoption of 
the Constitution, and it was then particularly raging. Five o-eneral 
revisions of the tariff passed the House while Reed Avas a member of 
it — two Democratic and three Republican — although the essential 
difference between them justified very little of the heat displayed in 
the controversy. Reed belicA^ed in "^encouraging manufactures, al- 
though the argument that seemed most strongly to weigh Avith him 
Avas of a social character and was based upon our higher standard of 
living, which required a higher Avage than in the countries Avith Avliich 
the competition was most keen. 

As a debater and parliamentary leader he must be accorded high 
rank. For nearly the entire period of his service the parties werelio 
evenly balanced in the country that no party could be said to be in 
control of the Government. The House was'usuallv Democratic, the 
Senate Republican, while the Presidency alternated between the two 
parties. From 1877 to 1889 all the three parts of the legislative 
machine were not controlled by the same party at any single time, 
except for a period of tAvo years. The Democratic Party." so long' 
victorious before the war, Avas again reviving; and havingVontrol o1 
the great popular branch of the GoA-ernment. the House became the 
theater of the struggle, and it Avas there that the contest was most 
bitterly waged for the possession of the Government. T doubt if 
there has been another period of equal length in our history Avhen the 
House was the scene of so much desperate party Avarfare, so much 
fighting of the short-sword order, and when there Avas a more impera- 
tive call for the qualities that fit men for intellectual combat. The 
Democratic Party was represented in that body by a group of ex- 
tremely able men, comprehending a wide diA'ersity of talent. In the 
combination of resources Avhich they presented it would be difficult to 
match them at any other time in the history of the House. It had 
parliamentary leaders and debaters like Carlisle. Randall, Crisp, and 
Turner, orators like Wilson, Cochran, and Bryan, and the list of its 
members possessing a really high order of talent might be much 
further prolonged. The necessity of the situation required the Re- 
publicans to keep their strongest man at the front. There are times 
Avhen the demands of the place are less exactnig and some man of 
fairly respectable talent may be chosen by political intrigue in prefer- 
ence to a stronger man and maA' successfulh' go through the forms of 
leadership. But in this instance the best Avas none too good, and it is 
no disparagement of the Republican membership to say that Avhen 
Reed became its leader he Avas so preeminently the man for the place 
as to stand in a class by himself; and from that time until he left the 
House 16 years later he remained at the head of his party, the longest 
period that any man has been the leader of a party in either the Sen- 
ate or the House. Men have been successful at the head of an opposi- 
tion Avho haA^e failed in attempting to lead a victorious party. Others 



10 THOMAS BEACKETT REED. 

have lacked in the fertility of resource necessary to attack who yet 'j 
with a majority about them could stubbornly conduct a defensive V 
battle. 

But Reed had the well-rounded qualities that made him equally 
successful both as minority and majority leader. He is. how- 
eA'^er, more interesting as minority leader, because in the evolu- ^ 
tion of our political institutions it became the custom to make the ^ 
leader of the majority in the House the Speaker, and the limitations ' 
of that office were not so Avell adapted to his temperament as was the 
freedom of the floor. For 10 years he led the minority, sometimes 
with a force at his back nearly equal to that of his antagonists and 
sometimes with a little band behind him outnumbered 3 to 1. It is 
the simple truth to say that great and varied as was the array of talent 
against him, he never was overmatched and he never appeared to 
have all his reserves brought into action. 

Let us take some account of his equipment. His appearance was 
most impressive. Giant as he was in stature, he looked every inch 
a leader. His very look fixed the attention of the House. He was 
slow and distinct in enunciation, with a powerful and strident voice 
capable of cutting through the confusion and penetrating to the 
farthest recesses of the enormous hall. He always used the lower 
tones of his voice, some of which were of great sweetness. He spoke 
without visible effort, rarely making a gesture, and a fine, strong 
light shone from his brilliant eyes, although in moments of great 
excitement they blazed with a consuming fire. 

His mind w^as a fit companion to his body. He had a remarkable 
power of statement, and when he was dealing with his opponent's 
case, instead of stating it first and then overthrowing it, he would 
often demolish it in the statement itself. " What the House likes 
best," he once said, " is plain statement, hard-hitting, and sense enough 
to know when one is clone." He was able to seize unerringly upon 
the vital point in a controversy, and he would not concern himself 
over the little issues. He had the good taste to speak simply. He 
saw things clearly, could express his exact meaning in admirably 
chosen words, and his sentences were without a blemish from the 
standpoint of form. As to the commonplace shifts of the orator, 
the balanced periods and the worked-up passages, he never patronized 
them. 

But his preeminent quality Avas his humor, a quality until recent 
times very little used in public speaking, judging from the examples 
that have come down to us. Prior to the middle of the nineteenth 
century oratory with us seems to have been a desperately serious 
calling. One Avould no more look for a joke in one of the approved 
speeches of that time than in a demonstration of Euclid. And some 
real humor would certainly mitigate their reading very much. Even 
that prince of orators, Daniel Webster, would be more widely read if 
he had not so sternly restrained the sense of humor which he undoubt- 
edly possessed. Reed's humor often showed the finish and perfection 
of the finest wit, but there were no small barbed arrows in his quiver. 
It was rather, like the body of his argument, the play of heavy 
artiller3^ and it could as effectively sweep the field. 

His willingness to accept battle was superb. T\^iat was said of 
a famous debater in the British Parliament could truthfully be said 
of him : " He went out in all weathers ; " but the weather that 



THOMAS BEACKETT EEED. ][] 

delighted him most was the storm ; and no weather seemed so roiio-h 
PS to disturb his coohiess and self-controL His speeches will usuaUy 
be found in the Eecord just as he delivered them. He did not emu- 
late some of the great orators of former times, not to mention our own 
and struggle with an occasion after it had passed by. He had not the 
habit of withholding his speeches for revision, to clothe them with a 
rhetoric which he would have spoken, but they were printed the next 
morning as they had been delivered. 

He never wasted words. " Speech," he once said, " dies upon the 
empty air. Better a pound of fact than a shipload of language." 
During his service in the House it is doubtful if he made a half 
dozen speeches as long as a half hour, and the length of the greater 
number of them would not exceed five minutes. Those short sJ3eeches 
light up the Kecord and are models of their kind, making the situa- 
tion clear and bringing the House to a sense of what it was doing. 
On two occasions only did his speeches approach two hours in length, 
one being the closing argument for his side against the Mills tariff 
bill and the other the closing argument against the Wilson bill. 
Each occasion was the culmination of a long and bitter party con- 
troversy. The Mills bill embodied the central policy upon which 
Cleveland's campaign for reelection in 1888 was to be waged. The 
tariff was much discussed in those days, and in three successive presi- 
dential elections it was the overshadowing issue. It filled the mouths 
of our statesmen with large figures, and their contributions to the 
" dismal science " were usually in keeping with its name. An ancient 
tariff speech, of all speeches in the world, is not apt to be the most 
entertaining reading, but Reed's speech on the Mills bill is worth 
reading even to-day. There are indeed few congressional speeches 
of equal len^h that will bear reading so well. It has none of the 
wooden qualities of the spoken essay, no particle of the ornate fustian 
which so often made the pretentious speech of the last century such 
a thing of terror, but it is a fighting speech, glowing from beginning 
to end, full of irony, argument, wit, and eloquence, and was equally 
effective at the moment and when read later in the campaign it was 
chiefly meant to influence. 

The debate upon the Wilson bill took place at the climax of the 
tariff agitation. It was the dramatic moment of a political battle 
running through all of Cleveland's contests for the Presidency. 

In the first he was elected, in the next defeated, and at last again 
victorious, and for the first time supported by both Houses of his 
own political faith, he was at the head of a party responsible for 
the passage of a tariff bill, and one was about to be enacted which 
pleased nobody and which he himself refused to sign. The closing 
of the debate* in the House presented a memorable spectacle, fitly 
marking the culmination of this long political struggle. The Capitol 
could scarcely contain the throng, and the great Chamber and its 
galleries were crowded to suffocation. Although the speech of Reed 
on that day began with the statement that " if anything seems to 
have been discussed until human nature can bear it no more, it is the 
tariff," both in its immediate effect and as it is read in the Record, it 
was worthy of a great occasion and measures up to the best standards 
of parliamentary eloquence. 

I believe that he has not been excelled as a debater by any man 
ever in the House of Representatives. There have been orators who 



12 THOMAS BEACKETT REED, 

have given more attention to rhetorical finish, but no man has sur- 
passed him in the history of the House, certainly for three-quarters 
of a century, in power of condensed statement, in a destructive 
ridicule, and in the stately and even flow of his speech, massive and 
strong. He appeared to the best advantage in his short speeches. 
That is not true of some of the other great parliamentary speakers. 
Take, then, either of his two longest efforts in the House, to which 
I have just been referring, that on the Wilson bill or that on the 
Mills bill. Kead it by the side of any other debating speech you may 
select, either from the House of Commons or the House of Repre- 
sentatives, taking, however, a speech of the modern era, wdien short- 
hand reporting had been developed, that you may know you are 
reading a real speech and not an imaginary oration with the fine 
outbursts and beautiful periods, the careful result of after prepara- 
tion. I believe that Reed will stand the test so far as the reading 
is concerned. Then if you wish to imagine the immediate effect, 
remember that his delivery exactly fitted what he said, and that in 
action he looked the 20,000-ton battleship, with all its range of 
armament, its great and little guns in full play, and that with his 
variety and force of attack he seemed at the time invincible. 

Reed, as minority leader dealing with the rules, was always engag- 
ing the other side and putting its leaders to the necessity of using 
all their wits. No man ever had a better command of the procedure 
of the House. He played the parliamentary game hard, but played 
it according to the rules, and he never sought to embark the House 
upon revolution. 

While as minority leader he was opposed to legislative anarchy. 
as leader of the majority he stood equally against legislative im- 
potenc}^ More conspicuously than with any other thing his name is 
identified with the overthrow of a system which enabled a minority, 
by refusing to vote, to produce a legislative paralysis and for negative 
purposes to control the action of the House. 

Speaker for six years, under the long-established practice of the 
House he was therefore its leader. He stated with exactness the 
character of the speakership when he was first chosen. In a speech, 
none the less admirable because in point of brevity it was at the 
time probably without parallel upon a like occasion, he said that 
under our system as developed the duties of his office were both 
political and parliamentary. 

So far as the duties are political, I sincerely hope that tliey may be per- 
formed with a proper seuse of what is due to the people of this whole country. 
So far as they are parliamentary, I hope with equal sincerity that they may 
be performed with a proper sense of what is due to both sides of this Chamber. 

Our speakership undeniably possesses this dual character and the 
question is often asked why it should have taken on the political 
aspect, when the speaker of the British House of Coinmons is in 
effect a judicial officer. The chief reason may be found in the differ- 
ence between our parliamentary systems. In England there is an in- 
termingling of the executive and legislative functions. All the min- 
isters of the Crown are members of the one legislative chamber or the 
other. The leading minister in the House of Commons is the leader 
of that body. He and his colleagues in office direct its affairs and con- 
duct the Government under their responsibility to the Commons. 



THOMAS BRACKETT EEED. 13 

"VAlien they fail to command a majority they go out of office. But we 
have no cabinet system. "We do indeed have what is called a cabinet, 
but its members are purely executive subordinates of the President, a 
species of magnificent head clerks, and are entirely lacking in par- 
liamentary functions. The Constitution contemplated separate de- 
partments, with Congress in a region by itself passing laws, and the 
President in his own secluded domain executing them, with an occa- 
sional formal message '' on the state of the Union." But no great Gov- 
ernment can be effectively run with the two branches of its central 
political department only upon formal speaking terms, with the 
President sending coldly constitutional and polite notes to Congress 
and the latter in its own good time replying or not as it should see 
fit to do. To insure that harmony which is essential in the w^orkings 
of all the parts of such a vast and complex governmental machine, 
there must be practical waj's of reaching an intimate understanding. 
Through a process of evolution the speakership had come to be an 
important instrument in supplying the apjDarent gap left b}^ the Con- 
stitution between the executive and legislative departments and to 
put them upon more workable terms. It presented the advantages of 
a centralized leadershi]) representing in the first instance the popu- 
lar branch of the legislature and tended to secure a measure of the 
unity in government secured by the cabinet system. And as a balance 
to the President, such a commanding figure on Capitol Hill, always 
responsible to the House and subject to being overruled by it, has 
operated as a check upon the obvious tendency to autocracy incident 
to the growth of the Government and the centralization of power at 
Washington. 

The central and dramatic event in Reed's speakership was the 
counting of the quorum. The large number of the quorum required 
in the House, eightfold larger than that of the British House of Com- 
mons when the difference in the number of members is taken into 
account, makes it difiicult for the party in control to maintain a 
quorum out of its own membership unless its majority is very large. 
It had for many years been the settled practice for the minority to 
attempt to defeat legislation to which they were opposed by abstaining 
from voting when they could not accomplish the same result by di- 
rectly voting against it. Thus the majority had frequently been com- 
pelled to abandon legislation. The majority of the House might 
actuallv be present, but the method of determining its presence had 
been bv the vote, and if a majority had not voted upon the roll call, 
business could not proceed. In Reed's first speakership his party had 
a very small majority. After a roll call upon a party question when 
less than a quorum of Members had responded to their names, although 
many more w^ere present, he directed the Clerk to note the presence of 
those who were present but had not voted. Thus a quorum was made 
up. and the vote was announced in favor of the proposition which 
had received a majority of those who had seen fit to vote. His 
reasons were simple, and thev Avere unanswerable from the constitu- 
tional standpoint. If Members could be present and refuse to exercise 
their function — 

the provisiou of the Constitution giving tlie House power to compel attendance 
of absent Members would seem to be entirely nugatory. Inasmuch as the Con- 
stitution only provided for their attendance, that attendance was enough. 



14 THOMAS BKACKETT REED. 

This ruling was followed by a parliamentary storm unprecedented 
in severity in the history of the House. For many hours it was not 
possible to proceed with the ordinary business on account of the up- 
roar. Members rushed down the aisles, filled the area in front of the 
Speaker, and denounced him with great violence of language as a 
tyrant and a czar. He held himself calm and unmoved amid the 
tumult, sustained by the consciousness that he was right, and that he 
was announcing a procedure which the Constitution contemplated 
and the growing demands of the countrj^'s business made absolutely 
necessary. 

The Supreme Court subsequently upheld the constitutionality of 
Reed's ruling, but his triumph Avas to be even more complete. His 
opponents were formally to sanction it. In a later Congress, when 
he led the minority and the party in control had returned to the 
ancient practice, he attacked it with every resource known to parlia- 
mentary law and succeeded in demonstrating its unsoundness. His 
antagonists, although they had a large majority, were unable to fur- 
nish a quorum from their own ranks. Reed's party, under his lead, 
refrained from voting, and thus for weeks the transaction of business 
was made impossible. And the men who had vehemently denounced 
him were compelled at last to adopt the principle of his ruling and 
affirm the practice that if a quorum is actually present the House can 
transact business whether Members vote or not. That has ever since 
been the law of the House. 

It required courage of the highest order to overturn the precedents 
of a century made by all parties, and previously assented to by him- 
self, and to establish a principle so correct and in accordance with 
common sense. But he was not disturbed upon the question of con- 
sistency. His dictum upon the subject proves that. 

I do not promise — 

He said — 

to give wisdom of adamant. I will give them honestly what my opinion is at 
the time ; they must take the chances of its being for eternity. 

It has required a man of unusual quality to direct our great popular 
assembly in the days since the Civil War, when the business of the 
Government has grown so enormously, when the pressure from pri- 
vate interests has vastly increased, and when partisanship has usually 
run so high. It is no light task to moderate that great turbulent body 
and to maintain orderly procedure. As Speaker, Reed fitly embodied 
the dignity of the House, and it never had a presiding officer who 
more inflexibly and fairly administered its rules. 

No greater Speaker ever presided over the House. Henry Clay, 
who directed not merely the affairs of the House, but to a large extent 
of the country during his speakership, w^as constantly taking the 
floor. He made a dozen or more speeches at a single session. I am 
not aware that during his whole speakership Reed took the floor 
either in the House or in Committee of the Whole. He held himself 
austerely in reserve. His rulings were models of just expression and 
possessed a weight and condensed power which it is difficult to match. 
He had the courage calmly to rise to great occasions, and with a hero- 
ism only equaled by his insight he established the greatest landmark 
in the parliamentary law of the House. 



THOMAS BRACKETT EEED. 15 

Just at the end of his public career a new set of issues were coming 
forward. He was opposed to the annexation of the Sandwich Islands, 
firmly believing that it was for the interest of the Republic to remain 
a continental power, and that it would contribute most effectively to 
the cause of good government throughout the world by furnishing the 
example of a well-governed democratic state and by scrupulous 
respect for the rights of weaker peoples. He was equally opposed to 
the Spanish War and used the power of his office, so far as he prop- 
erly could, to prevent both the annexation and the war. That powei- 
was great, but no man knew better than he that the Speaker was far 
from omnipotent ; that he could only lead where the House was will- 
ing to follow, and his efforts were unavailing. 

The war was begun for the avowed purpose of putting an end to a 
condition in the Western Hemisphere which was within our tradi- 
tional sphere of action, but the important question it bequeathed to 
us was whether we should become an Asiatic power and take upon 
ourselves the government of populations almost under the Equator in 
the seas of the Orient. Reed's political education, the practice of his 
whole life, and his view of the fundamental principle of the American 
commonwealth made his position upon this question inevitable. 
Long before the Philippines appeared upon our horizon he declared 
in a speech in the House " that the best government of which a people 
•is capable is a government which they establish for themselves. With 
all its imperfections, with all its shortcomings, it is always better 
adapted to them than any other government, even though invented hj 
wiser men." The idea that America should violate its traditional 
principle of self-government and enter upon the work of governing 
subject States he hated with all the fierce hatred of a vanishing time. 
It seemed to him like abandoning the principle which made her 
unique among the nations. He was profoundly stirred by our taking 
on " the last colonial curse of Spain," but it had been done by a treaty 
solemnly ratified by the Senate, and he had come to the parting of the 
ways. His reelection to the speakership appeared certain, and that 
office, he once declared, had but one superior and no peer. His mind 
had been never so ripe. But he was heartsore at the prospect of fol- 
loAving the new and opposite line, and he determined to retire to pri- 
vate life. To his near friend, Asher Hinds, he said : " I have tried, 
perhaps, not always successfully, to make the acts of my public life 
accord with my conscience, and I can not now do this thing." 

And so he wrote his touching farew^ell letter to his constituents and 
withdrew from the public service. 

One would fail to do justice to Reed if he did not speak of his 
brilliancy and charm in conversation. His wise, bantering, and 
witty talk was the life of any social group in which he happened to 
be placed. There was no arrogance in his manner, he never took 
possession of am- company, as social autocrats are apt to do, but none 
the less he was by common consent sure to take the lead. His sen- 
tentious witticisms became the talk of the town and were repeated 
from mouth to mouth. It is unfortunate that there was not some 
Boswell to take down his conversation and that so many of his bril- 
liant sayings have perished. His wit was ingrained in the substance 
of his style and was shown alike in conversation and in offliand 
speaking. He often united with it a homely common-sense phi- 



I 



IQ THOMAS BRACKETT EEED. 

losophv ^troiialy resemblincr that of Dr. Franklin and a way of put- 
tin«r it^ that reminds one of Sidney Smith. In attempting to quote 
from him. it is equally difficult to laiow Avhere to begin and where to 
stop, and after one is done he feels sure there are better specimens 
left." But I ATill venture a few short examples which may show 
something of the touch of his wit and philosophy. 

Bantering a House of the opposite party for doing nothing but 
talk, he said : 

It presents the dead level of a Dutch landscape with all its windmills but 
without a trace of its beauty and fertility. 

Of his own minority, he said : 

They behaved with gentleness and modesty, partly because they were very 
good men and partly because there were very few of them. 

And again of a Member wdio was a skillful lawyer, he said : 

There is no man in five kingdoms abler to dig a pit for a witness and sweetly 
coax him into it. 

Complimenting the honesty of an opponent to whom he was re- 
plying, he added : 

Such is the direct nature of his miud that there is no man so capal)le of 
thoroughly exposing the weakness of a bad position that he happens to occupy. 

This is his homely version of " omne ignotum pro magnifico.'' the 
principle in human" nature which causes the gold-brick industry to 
flourish in politics and elsewhere : 

Everything we do not know anything al>out always looks big. The human 
creature is imaginative. If he sees a tail disappearing over a fence, he images 
the whole beast and usually images the wrong beast. * * * whenever we 
take a trip into the realms of fancy, we see a good many things that never 
were. 

Speaking of a panic in Wall Street which squeezed the inflation 
out of values, he said : 

Water flowed down both sides of the street. 

Sometimes the w^orld moves slowly. 

It took 4,000 years of pagan and 15 centuries of Christian civilization to 
I)roduce a two-pronged fork and another century to bring it into use. 

We endure filth diseases thousands of years and call them visitations from 
God, and when some one proposes the remedy we listen in early ages with the 
horror suitable to greet a man w^ho wishes to interfere with God's methods in 
the universe. 

Never expect toleration from a crowd that has other views and has them 
vividly. 

Wrong is never so weak as in its hour of triumph. 

The alternation of good times and hard times antedates the pyramids. 

If we ever learn to treat the living with the tenderness with which we in- 
stinctively treat the dead, we shall then have a civilization well worth dis- 
tributing. 

That is one of the laws of God working for his children, and, compared with 
one of your laws of Congress, it is as Leviathan to a clam. 

The description of the view from Cushings Island across Portland 
Harbor, in which he takes you from the Portland of to-day to the 
Portland of the time of Cleve's landing, will serve as an example of a 
different vein, showing his accuracy as an observer and his skill as a 
painter of a scene. 

The long slope of grassy verdure varied by the darker foliage of the trees 
spreads wide to the water's edge. Then begins the bright sparkle of the sum- 
mer sea. that many-twinkling smile of ocean, that countless laughter of the 
waves which has lighted up the heart of man centuries since Eschylus died, and 



THOMAS BRACKETT BEED. 17 

centuries before be lived. Across the sunlit waters, dotted with the white sailfs 
or seamed with the bubbling foam of the steamers' track, past the wharves, 
bristling with masts and noisy with commerce, the gaze falls upon the houses 
sloping quickly upward in the center and becoming more and more embowered 
in trees as they climb the hills at either end. Following the tall spires the eye 
loses itself in the bright blue sky beyond. * * * jf y^^^ gi^^t your eyes and 
let the lofty spires disappear, the happy homes glisten out of sight, and the 
wharves give place to a curving line of shelving, pebbly beach: if you imagine 
the bright water unvexed by traffic, the tall peninsula covered with forests and 
bushy swamps, with the same varied expanse of island and of sea, and th<' 
whole scene undisturbed by any sound save the clanging cries of innumerable 
birds and waterfowl, you will be looking upon Machigonne as it appeared to 
George Cleve. 

liut' beyond his brilliancy as a debater, his resplendent wit and his 
skill as a parliamentary leader, his title to remembrance rests upon 
his quality as a statesman. He had a great ambition, but it was not 
great enough to lead him to surrender any principle of government 
which he deemed vital. Like Webster, like Clay, and others of our 
most conspicuous statesmen, he was disappointed at not reaching the 
Presidency, but he could fitly aspire to the office, for he was of the 
fiber and' nurture out of which great Presidents are made. He 
probably would not have been a continuously popular President, but 
our grefit Presidents never have been. He had that supreme quality 
which was seen in Washington breasting the popular anti-British 
feeling and asserting against France our diplomatic independence; in 
Lincoln bearing the burden of unsuccessful battles and holding back 
the sentiment for emancipation until the time was ripe for freedom ; 
in Grant facing the popular clamor and vetoing- inflation; and in 
Cleveland alienating his party while he persisted in as righteous and 
heroic a battle as was ever waged by a President. 

A great nation can not make up its mind in a moment. What first 
appeals to its fancy is not likely to appeal to its final judgment, and 
the severest test of the disinterestedness of the statesman under our 
system is his readiness to risk unpopularity and defeat m order to 
protect the people from their first impulse and give them an oppor- 
tunity to form a real opinion. Heed's faith was in what he called 
" the' deliberate judgment of the people," but he declared that '' the 
sudden and unreflecting judgment of the noisy who are first heard is 
quite as often a voice from the underworld." This distmction is 
vital, since the cause of democracy has nothing to hope from the 
statesman who weakly yields to the temptation alw^ays to be popular 
and who panders to "the noisy passions of the moment rather than 
consults the real interests of the people. Reed recognized no divinity 
in an unthinking clamor, whether raised by one man or a great mass 
of men The people could no more depend on inspiration to guide 
them in performing their public duties than in their private affairs 
In each case reflection and work were equally necessary. He showed 
his reverence for representative government by the calni dignity Avitli 
which he bore himself during more than two decades of service. He 
was sometimes compelled to struggle to maintain himself, but he 
scorned to make the struggle upon demagogue lines, or to swerve 
from the straight path upon which he moved with so much majesty. 
He was not prigged up with the commonplace sort of greatness, with 
a padded and theatric make-up stag^l to strike the imaginations of 
little men or to set wagging the puffing pens of little writers. He 
S. Doc. 864, 61-3 2 



18 THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 

Avas no self-advertiser and ran no press bureaus to trumpet his real or 
imaginary virtues. He sought no mere noisy and ephemeral fame, 
but he lived upon a plane visible at history's jjerspective. and he 
grandly wove his life into the texture of his time. 

And so you rear this statue. And you do well to rear it. for, al- 
though his memory is one of the treasures of the whole country, it 
was you who gave him to the Nation. He was the product of the 
sky and soil of Maine, lightened by her sunshine and hardened by her 
storms. As a representative acts well or ill he reflects credit or dis- 
credit upon those who have chosen him. By this test how signally 
he honored you. But you equally honored yourselves when, amid all 
the shifting-^ popular vagaries and the following of false gods, you 
permitted yourselves to'be guided by the better genius of popular 
government and kept this heroic figure for so long a time in the serv- 
ice of his country. And when he returned his commission to you he 
could truthfully say, as he proudly said, " No sail has been trimmed 
for any breeze or any doubtful flag ever flown." That noble phrase 
gives the keynote to his character as a statesman. The only colors he 
was willing to fight under were those that represented his own prin- 
ciples. He never sailed just for the sake of sailing, but to make 
progress upon a straight course. He did not take his inspiration and 
direction from the winds, but from the stars. 

o 



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